James Ingram

Wayne Ingram began executing with the music group Revelation Funk in the first ’70s, moving from Akron, Ohio to LA in 1973. Through the ’70s, Ingram backed Ray Charles on the highway with back-up vocals and piano, performed keyboards behind the Coasters on Dick Clark’s oldies revues, and was Leon Haywood’s musical movie director. After hearing a demonstration of him performing “ONLY ONCE,” Quincy Jones asked Ingram to execute on his fresh recording. Released in 1980 within the Dude, the quantity 17 “ONLY ONCE” was Ingram’s 1st success, leading to three Grammy nominations — Greatest New Artist, Greatest Pop Man Vocal, and Greatest R&B Vocal — earning in both latter categories. Through the entire ’80s, Ingram experienced steady popular achievement performing duets, but most of his single albums didn’t create a dent within the graphs; in 1990 he obtained his first single hit, “I DON’T POSSESS the center.”